Liars and Saints

  This is a painting that has "grabbed" me for several years. A woman and a Roman soldier are accusing Peter of being a friend of Christ. There are three pointed fingers -- one for each of the three accusations (or the three denials). As he tells a lie, Peter seems to humble himself; he is not holding his head up, and he has not put his shoulders back.  Amy Bloom wrote several stories about an aging couple of adulterous horndogs; as the years go by, the man and woman understand that they will likely need to split up. (They have behaved very badly. Once, the woman expressed her frustration by crushing her lover's fancy wristwatch with the wheels of a car.) As the date of the breakup lunch approaches, the woman reflects that this won't be pretty. "Neither one of us will leave covered in glory." That line reminds me of Caravaggio's painting. Peter is embarrassing himself. But, also, the accusers are acting in a shameful way. The woman seems drunk with rage,...

 I've enjoyed every John Green book I've read, and the new one continues the streak. Juniper Castillo is an Ariana Grande type. She endured childhood stardom. There was a fair amount of abuse; one mentor closely monitored Castillo's weight and forced her to take on physical discomfort. ("If you can keep your pulse rate low during an assault, that's a way of learning how to be a screen performer.") In early adulthood, Castillo is nakedly ambitious; she understands that Hollywood is a game, but she really, really wants to win the game. By contrast, Juniper's co-star, Kai, is not interested in the politics of celebrity. He just enjoys inventing a character. Kai isn't sure he wants the attention that comes with a movie role; in Kai's high school years, a teacher was (repeatedly) sexually abusive. If the abuse story leaks to the press, Kai will have to articulate his thoughts about frightening memories. He will have to do this in front of multiple camer...

  I'm not whining. I do think it's strange that the public school system requires parents to endure a tedious "orientation" program in the spring--when the same bland material is re-rehearsed for parents the following autumn. David Sedaris once wrote a scathing review of a local elementary school's production of "A Christmas Carol," and I often think about this piece. At "Back to School Night," the greatest tension resulted from a discussion about reusable water bottles. I find the bottle obsession to be absurd. In my childhood, you just made a stop at the public drinking fountain. Now, each little pre-K diva needs a Nalgene, as if he or she were Audra McDonald, replenishing fluids during a Carnegie Hall recital of Schubert's German art songs. But my daughter's teacher shocked all parents by demanding *two* water bottles per student. There was then a lengthy, baffling speech about the lunch basket and the snack basket--and the problem o...

In "The Night of the Dolphin," Lisa frees a captive dolphin from Sea World. But the dolphin turns out to be Snorky, King of All Dolphins. Having been given power, Snorky organizes a revolt. ("Our playful leaping was not about discovery and joy. We just hated the water. We wanted to get out.") Homer believes that mankind can win the war against dolphins. ("We humans have destroyed a species before. And we invented the pudding cup, the glory hole, and the peel-and-eat shrimp....") But the dolphins are the victors. People retreat to the sea. Having become philosophical, Homer remembers the soil. "Well, land....I guess the dolphins just WANTED it more...." This segment is wonderful because of Snorky, who speaks in well-organized paragraphs and walks on his caudal fin. You also get a helpful insult to borrow if you're ever in a fight with a dolphin. ("You're just a....hoop-jumping.....TUNA-MUNCHER....") The writer--Carolyn Omine--has...

 Paul Simon's "Graceland" is an "I Am" song--it's rueful and amused and optimistic. It is a grownup pop song. Like any artist, Simon sees the dissolution of a marriage as an opportunity. He takes a *literal* journey (to the South) while also taking an "inner" journey (to the truth or something like the truth). The external world is an echo of the interior world. When Simon alludes to "the cradle of the Civil War," he is talking about Abraham Lincoln, but he is also talking about the civil war that was his marriage, and he is talking about the war within his own soul. Writing without self-pity, Simon notices something funny about Carrie Fisher: She comes back to tell me she's gone. As if I didn't know that! As if I didn't know my own bed. As if I never noticed-- The way she brushed her hair from her forehead. (For the next several years, Fisher and Simon will continue to send mixed signals to each other. One will always be trou...

 Andrew Garfield makes a point of working with high-profile directors: Scorsese, Lin-Manuel Miranda, David Fincher, Guadagnino. So the Garfield/Paul Greengrass collaboration has a sense of inevitability. It's the 1300s! The bubonic plague is doing its thing. Richard II is running out of money; his nefarious advisors suggest that he should tax the poor. But the masses strike back. There is an assumption that Richard II himself is a decent person; he has just (unfortunately) surrounded himself with snakes. Fighting ensues. People start to reevaluate their understanding of Richard II. That's the entire movie. If you're going to have sinister barons whispering in the 1300s, you're going to need Stephen Dillane and Tom Hollander; this movie gives us both actors, and they do exactly what we want them to do. You also get Katherine Waterston, consistently mysterious as Joan of Kent. The biggest shock of the cinema summer season was Anne Hathaway in "The End of Oak Street...

  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/arts/television/best-tv-shows-21st-century.html In every imaginable universe, "Somebody Somewhere" is a smarter, subtler show than "The Pitt." I have watched and written about both shows. You will never convince me that the Times is justified in ranking "The Pitt" *above* Bridget Everett's masterpiece. You will never convince me that this is anything other than sexism. Everett would never make something as clunky as the "Tree of Life" chapter from "The Pitt." That said, I want to share my happiest memory of TV watching. It involves "Better Call Saul," a show that did not crack the top twenty in the Times. (Absurd.) There are moments in history when all of New York City and its suburbs seem to be focused on one TV mystery. Will Jesse survive the finale of "Breaking Bad"? Did Ralph, in "The Sopranos," murder his own horse (just to collect insurance money)? Which ...

  This is my other favorite painting; it's by Peter Paul Rubens. It has a title--but I prefer to give it my own title. I've selected the title "Leaving the House." Little Frans, the boy, has run ahead and ascertained that the car door is locked. He wonders why Peter Paul can't hurry up, find the remote key fob, and click the "beeper" button. Mom, Helena, worries that it might rain. Peter Paul understands that the trip ahead will involve walking--the family is heading to the zoo. Wouldn't it be smart to double back and locate the stroller? Right now, I'm watching "The Americans"; the main story that interests me is about the married Jennings couple and their teen daughter Paige. Whenever the Jennings share a secret, they exchange looks, and their daughter notices the look, and the camera notices the couple *not* noticing Paige's moment of observation. When Paige visits her parents' fake travel agency, she jokes that Mom wants to ...

  Lily King called her first story collection "Five Tuesdays in Winter"; the title is a dare. King is daring herself to find extraordinary moments within superficially banal settings. Extraordinary moments within a "winter Tuesday." Mitchell's daughter, who was twelve, accused him of loving his books but hating his customers. He didn't hate them. He just didn't like having to chat with them or lead them to clearly marked sections--if they couldn't read, why were they buying books? .... His daughter loved the customers. She sat behind the counter at the cash drawer every Saturday, writing up receipts in an illegible imitation of his own hand and chatting like an innkeeper. She was too tall and too sophisticated for a Maine preteen. She made him uneasy. She had recently learned the word "reticent" and used it on him constantly.  "Isn't he the most reticent person you've ever met?" she asked Kate, his only other employee. ...

  I first saw "Spring Awakening" while I was in my early twenties; I had endured a Catholic education in which my teacher, a deacon, made a point of observing that homosexual intercourse was a problem. "Two men can have a close friendship, but all articles of clothing must remain in place...." With "Awakening," it was immediately clear that something seismic had occurred.  There is the band on the stage, and blackboards, and several members of the audience. Lea Michele appears in a white gown and recites a kind of prayer: Mama, who bore me-- Mama, who gave me-- No way to handle things-- Who made me so sad. Mama, the weeping-- Mama, the angels-- No sleep in Heaven... Or Bethlehem... What is she talking about? Having lived through her own Christian education, Lea Michele's Wendla feels chaotic, unnerved. She seems to identify with Mary, exhausted, wandering through Bethlehem, visiting unfriendly innkeepers at overpacked inns. (Later, the unwed Wendla wil...

 Harlan Coben was not a voracious reader at Amherst College. (His classmates included David Foster Wallace and the future superstar Dan Brown.) Coben was not "groomed" to be a writer; his parents liked books, but they didn't push an agenda. When Coben tries to explain the source of his ambition, he recalls a high-school classmate who was murdered. The apparent killer--another teenager--simply disappeared. Coben also recalls that he lived near a site for the storage of nuclear missiles. (This was close to the Livingston Mall.) And one of Coben's neighbors was a wealthy mafia kingpin--a man responsible for several murders. These bits of data floated around in Coben's head. And he became a writer. Coben offers life advice--as well as writing advice--and he sometimes offers advice that seems to fall into *both* buckets. Don't whine. Be curious about the world. Don't hesitate to make things up. Bad writing often seems like throat-clearing. There is a tendency t...

 A couple seems to have some pedestrian problems. The man and woman have recently relocated from Chicago to London; the new house has issues with its wiring. The man complains to a friend about British customer service reps: "They're not rude, but they're not NOT rude, you know? No one is going the extra mile." One source of tension at home is that the young woman believes in ghosts while the young man does not. Then--in one of the most startling scenes I've ever witnessed in a theater--the young man begins a new conversation with the young woman. And the young woman suddenly evaporates. She does not leave the room; she does not drop through a trapdoor. She evaporates. "She" had been an otherworldly imposter. It's time to call in the Barbara Hershey neighbor. (I refer to this person as the Barbara Hershey neighbor, because she is in every scary movie, and she is sometimes played by Barbara Hershey. She is the PhD who has to recite a nonsense speech a...

  With "Hacks," Jean Smart was consistently better than her material. She made the show seem smarter than it was. I have no objections to her Emmy win.  I do have objections to the "Hacks" finale. Let's revisit this. DV, having heard she has a more-or-less terminal illness, tells Ava that she will be linking up with Dignitas. It's time to die. As others have noted, DV makes no mention of her daughter or grandchild. This is implausible, but it's *also* a slap in the face to Kaitlin Olson, who has done beautiful work as "Junior" throughout the series. Ava first rejects DV's invitation to Europe. She won't participate. Then, she recants. Oh, fine. A pivotal scene occurs at the Louvre. Ava suggests that the "Mona Lisa" is middlebrow. "I mean, it's prettier than anything *I* could do, but....meh." DV says the painting is the most beguiling image in Europe. Ava immediately responds: "Lady, what BEGUILES me would m...

 My daughter has an elaborate fantasy life, and she has minimal interest in the actual, tangible world. She writes lengthy ballads about personal crises and personal growth. But she cannot be bothered to hold a can of seltzer--the seltzer immediately slips from her hands and spills all over the floor. Over and over again. I increasingly feel like I'm watching an X-ray image of myself--and I even have memories of obtuse adults scolding me about spilled liquids. (These are memories from my childhood.) I'm *now* in the role of the obtuse adult. The other side of Susie's personality is a tendency toward harsh self-criticism. What happens is that she cannot tolerate constructive criticism from another person--because she feels fragile and she needs to believe she has a continuous stream of every adult's unstinting understanding and approval. I see this so clearly. Yesterday, we watched the "new" version of "Moana." It's not as bad as the reviews. But ...

  You can't buy "A Woggle of Witches" on Amazon--unless you're willing to pay an absurd amount of money. But it's on YouTube. It's the story of a coven; the witches wake up on Halloween night and have an adventure. There are four stages: the wakeup routine, the feast, the journey, and the return to land. Adrienne Adams has fun with the details. The witches sleep in pods during daylight hours; they are high in the trees. Their feast involves "cobweb bread" and "bat stew." To travel, they fly on brooms; their destination is the surface of the moon. Then, in a moment of situational irony, the witches contend with terror; they are frightened to notice a group of tiny trick-or-treaters back on Earth. The figure who steals the show is the Moon Man. He is visibly irritated when the witches--like little ants--gather close to his eyeball. But he can't retaliate. This makes me think of an acquaintance of mine who violates the local parking rule w...

 The greatest musical is "Gypsy"; this has entered "beyond debate" territory.  If you look at Broadway's musical offerings right now, they are generally bad. It's hard to find a musical with a smart book, high stakes, an original story,  and  a soaring, intelligent score. "And Juliet" can't give you all of that. "The Lost Boys" can't give you all of that. It's not clear to me that "Schmigadoon" has high stakes. And, though "Two Strangers" makes more of an effort than almost any other show currently on Broadway, the score and the book leave something to be desired. Among other things, "Gypsy" touches on the destruction of a family, the debasement of women in America, the idea of emotional abuse, and the gap between truth and perception. And it's a musical! "Gypsy" does almost everything extraordinarily well, but its really sublime moment is (at least for me) the end of Act One. This i...

 The Mysterious Bookshop is among the greatest spots in Manhattan; it's around the corner from a cousin of mine. I don't really understand the geography of Tribeca, but if you see the strange "Oculus" station, then you know you are near the Mysterious Bookshop. One of a few admirable missions at the Bookshop: to travel all over the United States and document our country's most bizarre crimes. The books are written in France; the French perspective is supposed to add something new. I haven't actually identified the "special sauce" within the French journalism, but I have read most of the books to date. Books on Chandra Levy (DC), the Murdaugh family (South Carolina), the missing Blackfeet women (Montana). I just devoured the story of Alice Crimmins (New York)--and now I feel that Crimmins is possibly not guilty of "her crime." (Also, how strange to note that she is still alive!) Another fine effort of this bookshop...The owner, Otto Penzler,...

 There is a terrific example of an "I Am" song in "Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York." Dougal is planning to enter a church where his negligent father will get married. Dougal is ambivalent. He calls his mother--a person who was once abandoned mid-pregnancy--and leaves a voice message. He describes the scene: I'm wearing my suit with the scuffs in the knees-- The one that we got for my GCSEs. If I stand in the street any longer, I'll freeze. If I put my eye to the door, I can just about see-- There are hundreds of people and stars on the tree. I'd better go in and say, Hi, Dad, it's me.... As he makes observations, Dougal is thinking. He is crossing a bridge from childhood to adulthood--he is recognizing (at a cost) that someone who remains silent for twenty-five years is likely someone who does not care about you. The good news is that Dougal does not need his father; Dougal already has what he needs. The last time I wore this, I looked lik...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/books/best-thriller-books-21st-century.html It's standard practice to complain when a newspaper publishes a "Year's Best" list. Best movies. Best fashion statements. Best actors. A complaint then triggers a counter-complaint: "If you wanted to include THAT addition, which name would you REMOVE from the current list?" I'm not writing in a serious spirit. I'm not going to argue for *subtractions* from the NYT thriller list. I'm just going to say that certain omissions surprised me. First, Anthony Horowitz is among the most important popular writers in England right now. He has created a series for Lesley Manville, updated the James Bond series in plausible ways, insightfully championed the works of other writers (Ira Levin, Sarah Waters). Horowitz is on the current list for "Magpie Murders," a great novel. But his career-defining series--Horowitz and Hawthorne--is off the list. At least one of the...

 "I Won't Mind" is a well-liked cabaret song from an unfinished musical. It's like a faux-Sondheim song. It's someone lying to herself--and that's a topic Sondheim handled well. But Sondheim didn't write this. The song plays with two meanings of the expression  I won't mind.  The first is this: "I won't protest." I won't complain if you spill porridge on me. The second is this:  I won't be mindful . I won't be the adult. If there is a dangerous blurring of boundaries, I will neglect my responsibility; I will look the other way. The fun of the song is seeing the slow change from meaning one to meaning two. What starts as something sweet gradually becomes something mildly sinister. Real pain is legible in an actor's eyes. It's not about "indicating": wringing one's hands, or shouting, or kneading the hem of one's skirt. It's the eyes. The actor has to decide (1) to "access" that pain and (...

 We went to a cat cafe and ordered from a "KitTea List." The shop was named--unfortunately--the "Alley Cat Cat Cafe." It doesn't trip off the tongue. It's like the record store that called itself "The Vinyl Solution." Giacometti once made a wonderful cat. It was on display--for a long while--next to the Temple of Dendur. It seemed to accompany a resting "Sphinx of Hatshepsut." And my family likes the cats at the zoo. Recently, the lions have hogged the spotlight; the lioness gave birth. But I'm equally fond of the cheetah and of the snow leopard, now starring in its own non-fiction book, "The Ghost of the Mountains." At the cat cafe, my husband played with a small stuffed kitty, which he then chose to buy "for our daughter." I studied the scene. You can't bring your purchase to the "cat area." A thick glass window-wall separates the cat-guests from the coffee-drinking guests. To fraternize with the ca...

  Elmore Leonard said that interesting writing is dialogue. If your book isn't mostly dialogue, then you're in trouble. The crime writer Janice Hallett has taken this advice to extremes; Hallett's novels are just transcripts from email exchanges, text exchanges, voice mail recordings. So--in a way--the writing is *all* dialogue. There are always two parts of a message: the content of the message *and* the style of delivery. Hallett has fun with passive aggression, terseness, crazy effusiveness, sloppiness, neediness. Hallett generally has two or three investigators working through a bundle of documents. The documents contain a mystery. We, the readers, see the documents, but we also see the exchanges between the investigators as they do their interpretive work. The documents need to support the investigators' conclusions. But the documents also need to seem to tell a different story--a *wrong* story--so we can understand why the investigators were needed in the first pl...

  Fran Kranz made an interesting debut with "Mass." It's a movie about language--groping for language. That's the entirety of the movie. Two couples meet at a church. Clearly, something terrible has occurred. The couples try to find words. They do a little dance involving a potted plant. It's a gift from Ann Dowd to Martha Plimpton. Does Martha have to accept it? Where should it sit in the room? Is it to be "interpreted," or is it just a potted plant? What emerges is that Ann Dowd's son has murdered Plimpton's son. Dowd's son was essentially Dylan Klebold; there is a "Columbine" story in Dowd's past. Kranz has done his research. Two offshoots of the Columbine story involved diagnoses and God. (1) Do we say Klebold was evil, or that he was in pain? Some people argue that the "psychopathy" diagnosis is meaningless--it encourages us to stop asking questions when we should keep asking questions. (2) What to make of the Chr...

  I went to the Spirit Halloween store and bought "Ghostface" socks. They feature the iconic killer from "Scream," one of my favorite movies. On certain pairs, Ghostface is bathed in blood. On others, he is more "stylized"; sometimes, less is more. My daughter purchased a witch's broom (which she then began to carry, nightly, to her bed). My son bought many yards of synthetic "spider web" fabric; the choice puzzles me because my son hates spiders. Or he *claims* to hate spiders. Spirit Halloween has an annual theme. Last year, we all were treated to "the haunted subway." This year, if you visit an outpost, you'll see a spooky summer camp, with a witch, a Michael Myers, and a talking scarecrow, among other inventions. I have to deduct points from East Hanover's store because certain animatronic creatures were "mute." In other words, you would step on the "activator," and nothing would happen. It's stra...

 Recently, the NYT named its top fifty thrillers of the century (thus far) -- one of the titles was "You" by Caroline Kepnes. This is like an update of "The Talented Mr. Ripley." Almost every character is insufferable but also cunning (and so the book is sort of entertaining). "You" unfolds in the present tense. A troubled business-owner, Joe, meets a damaged aspiring writer, Beck. Joe writes in the second person -- the book is like one long letter to Beck. This makes you feel like you're in the middle of a Taylor Swift song. Things become crazy right away. Joe murders Beck's lover, a purveyor of hipster seltzer water. Beck seems interested in Joe -- but she keeps cancelling plans so that she can be with her deranged frenemy "Peach" Salinger, a descendant of J.D. Salinger. Peach eventually tries to rape Beck. The "bad faith" complications multiply. Eventually, one of the two stars is confined to a subterranean cage -- and the ot...

  This movie begins within the world of a TV show--it's really the world of "Barney the Dinosaur." But Barney is now Buddy, and he is a unicorn. I love when several people are forced together on a campus--and "BarneyLand" is a campus I have not seen in a movie before. The children mostly get along; there is also a talking backpack, which might be a reference to "Dora the Explorer." A nurse and mailman are on the periphery. Buddy the unicorn demands that everyone learn to dance. When one little boy refuses, Buddy commits murder, then covers up the corpse. The story begins to feel like a comment on Harvey Weinstein. Buddy repeatedly says, "I am the one with the power, and you will believe each of my statements." One suspicious child begins to doubt his own suspicions--the world works in a certain way, and if there is evidence to the contrary, the evidence must be wrong. We then make a jump to the real world, the actual world. Cristin Milioti is...

  In a musical, you will generally see an emotional shift right before the end of Act One. The stakes need to change. One of the most effective examples is from "Kimberly Akimbo." Right before the curtain, Kim decides that she is going to make a birthday demand: If her parents really want her to have a good day, they can promise to be different people. (Less drinking, less self-absorption, less flakiness.) Kim is essentially a child; she thinks these sorts of promises have value. We, in the audience, can sense a trainwreck in the future. Terrific dramatic choice. Another celebrated example is "Defying Gravity." Elphaba realizes that the Wizard is not what he claims to be; she decides she will wage war to free the animals of Oz. The song should feel both exhilarating and nightmarish. Hard to beat the flying, belting Elphaba. "Six" does something unusual. We don't get a curtain that "divides" two acts. But--really--there is a curtain. It falls ...

 One of the best hours I had this summer was an instructional hour; a third grader and I worked on a diorama. We had been reading "The Cricket in Times Square" by George Selden. Many of my curricular ideas come from my old mentor, Sara, who believed third graders *should* be exposed to George Selden. But Sara's third graders were New Yorkers; my own third grader has never been to Manhattan (and this is amazing to me, because my student lives in Maplewood). It's abundantly clear why "Cricket in Times Square" is a classic. First, the setting. A cricket and a mouse exchange ideas by a newsstand underneath Times Square; we're on a subway platform. The subterranean world of Tucker Mouse is wonderfully vivid; if you're a tiny mouse, then you notice every piece of detritus next to the trash can. Every candy bar wrapper is a treasure. This world is contrasted with the glamour of Times Square and Chinatown; Mario, a little boy, is the "tissue" that ...

 Clifton Fadiman sounds insufferable. He was a misogynist. He informed his daughter of his extramarital affairs by saying, to her, "I've just had a stroke. There are some women I want you to call. Share the news. Don't ask any questions. Here's the list." Fadiman also struggled to cope with daily life. When his wife/servant had a health episode, Fadiman (reasonably) chose to drive his daughter to a restaurant for dinner--and he immediately crashed the car. On the other hand, Fadiman was a revered critic for "The New Yorker"--he was brave enough to say that Faulkner was for masochists. Fadiman launched his own career by inventing 100 good ideas for book proposals--handing the list to a friend in publishing--and worming his way into a Manhattan editorial department. Additionally, he edited "Cricket" Magazine and did a high-profile translation of Nietzsche. None of this really matters--what matters is that Clifton is the father of Anne Fadiman, on...

  I loved this movie. Dwight Garner somewhat ludicrously referred to Marlon James's new novel as "the novel of the century." I won't say "Coyote vs. Acme" is the movie of the century, but it has the aura of a classic. Wile E. Coyote wants to sue Acme because its products are defective. You buy mechanical wings--and you find yourself immediately falling to Earth. Will Forte--in a beautiful performance--agrees to take on Wile E. Coyote's case. Wile E. Coyote cannot speak, but his face displays a range of emotions. It's just like the faces of the various sheep in "Mossy Bottom." Also, Wile E. Coyote can hold up cue cards that convey some of his more complex thoughts. Likewise, Road Runner cannot articulate motives, but Road Runner *can* say "meep meep" for "yes" and "meep" for no. The WEC/Road Runner relationship is important in our culture; it's the source of the Bob/Bart relationship in "Cape Feare...